Final Shards of Hope
by Thorongil82
Summary: Two centuries after the adventures of Ash and his numerous friends, the world has fallen into chaos and despair with no one knowing how it happened. Once, a band of strangers tried to fix the world and came close, but they could not achieve the dreams of all. Now is the time for a new group of champions to rise to the challenge. But do they have the strength of heart to persevere?


**Greetings, all. For those of you who haven't heard of me, I'll try to keep this quick. I am Thorongil82, part of a group called the G.M.A.D. I am more known for How To Train Your Dragon stories, though I have been meaning to write some other fanfics as well. This is one I've been meaning to do for a while. I'm a big fan of Pokémon and I hope to do a just job with this. I should warn you all that my style of writing may not be what you are used to seeing. Doesn't mean you won't like it ... just thought I'd let you know.**

 **Well, that should do for now. Here's the prologue, and welcome to my new story!**

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 **Prologue**

Change is constant.

Over time; past, present and future, change is ever present. Sometimes it is a necessary step in the evolution of the world, bringing forth new discoveries and inventions. Other times, darkness can be ushered in and wash over the lands, bringing disaster and destruction to all but the wicked.

This is such a time.

The world today has been thrown into turmoil and spiralling out of control. People band together to hold against the anguish, but slowly they are losing their hope to the shadows. A hope that all can be made right like it once was long ago. The immortal names of Pokémon figures like Professor Oak, his grandson Gary Oak, Misty Kasumi, Pokémon Doctor Brock Harrison, Top Coordinator and Stylist Dawn Green, Top Coordinator May Birch, Dragon Master Iris, Master S-Class Pokémon Connoisseur Cilan, Top Class Pokémon Performer Serena Yvonne, the Master Inventor Clement Citron and his assistant and sister Bonnie have long since passed from reality to legend, while Champions and Masters like Cynthia Kale, Drake Dragonheart, Steven Stone, Wallace, Alder and Diantha have been engraved into history's pages. Even the legendary careers of the elusive 'N', the heroic Ash Ketchum and his faithful partner Pikachu, and even the mysterious anonymous figure known simply as 'Red' have ended a century ago. Those tales, taking place a century and a half ago, keep the light shining in a world of ever growing darkness, as disparity creeps closer and closer to engulfing all.

No one knows how the world changed, or even who the puppet master in control was. All that was understood was that chaos rained down upon civilisations suddenly and without warning. Reports started flooding in from all corners and sources of disasters happening left and right. Access to special resources was suddenly being sealed off. The global economy was plummeting to lows it had not been in for decades. Crimes were springing up at an alarming rate, with the Global Police Force losing their grasp on control. And with that rush of chaos, the legends that crafted and protected the world woke up. Earthquakes shook and tore the world down to the core. Tsunamis crashed into the land with the force of a hurricane, while storms and tornados raged from the heavens. Blazes spread as is possessed and volcanoes erupted with such fury, it seemed as if the world would break apart at any moment. And with nature's forces terrorizing the planet; people and Pokémon alike, the dark pulse of a powerful figure hidden in the shadows grew with each passing day. One thing was for certain, though. Whoever or whatever was behind these chaotic times, if there was someone responsible for this mayhem, they were succeeding in flooding the world with fear.

Once, the regions were united against the threat that faced them, coordinating their efforts together to combat the devastation surrounding their people. The big five regions in particular; Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova and Kalos, were sending food and supplies all across the world, aiding the ravaged and protecting the defenceless. Together, they gave the world hope that things could be returned to normal. That the misery and despair would only be temporary, the combined strength of the regions would be enough to dispel the darkness. However, slowly but surely, the relationships of the regions binding everyone together slowly deteriorated. Tension built between those in power as rumours spread far and wide of foreboding and treacherous plans in place, designed for total domination for the region that would dare betray the other five.

Each region had an underlining factor that could justify their rise to power. Kanto; an overwhelming number of powerful trainers, Gym Leaders, Frontier Brains and Masters, Johto; a region with many strongly defendable areas and strong trainers to back it up, Hoenn; the ability to possibly control legendary Pokémon, in the case of the Red, Blue and Jade Orbs, Sinnoh; ancient knowledge, connections and powers, perhaps the best situated region to understand and solve the mystery of what plagues the world, Unova; on average the strongest connections with Pokémon with thanks to N's teachings, and Kalos; the region with the greatest understanding of Mega Evolutions and the most advanced technology widely available, perhaps even more technological secrets hidden away. These rumours and possibilities tainted the relationships between the regions, causing them to fall out and enter an unofficial war with each other after a decade of working together and, sending more turmoil tumbling down upon the world.

Kanto and Johto broke out first and the hardest, with people, trainers and Pokémon taking up arms and engaging in fierce battles on the borders of each region, particularly within the mountain range between the nations with Mt. Silver reaching high into the clouds above. Johto and Hoenn got involved in a war over the ocean with ships and Water Pokémon duking it out near coastal cities and towns. Sinnoh and Unova fought in a few battles with each region, while Kalos tried as hard as possible to keep out of everything all together. Ultimately, however, they were brought into the contest when a massive clash took place in their region with Sinnoh, Unova engaging with them in the wastelands that take up the area north-west of Luimose City, where the region's power plants are situated. This all culminated in a final battle in the deserts of Unova, spanning across from the desert resort in between Castella City to Nimbasa City to the sinking sand tomb that is Relic Castle.

This clash, known as the Battle of Shattered Dreams, raged on for fourteen days and nights. Bodies of men, women and Pokémon lay prone on the ground as steel, fists, fangs, claws, rock and skin clattered and struck one another as sandstorms rampaged across the desert terrain, barraging any unprepared and weakened combatants and burying them in the piling sand dunes. Blood stained the grainy ground as the resort crumbled to the ground, destroyed by the immense damage sustained from various moves colliding with the structures, while Relic Castle remained a surprisingly powerful fortress, even when separated for each region. Through scorching hot day and freezing cold night, the five armies fought constantly with seemingly no end in sight, weariness striking harder and harder against the wounded, tired, exhausted battlers.

On the dawn of the fifteenth day, the remaining able bodied soldiers took to the borders of Relic Castle, standing round in a face-off with each region's Elite Four and Champion at the helm. As they began the charge for the long and, probably, decisive battle, upon one of the turrets above them stood eighteen figures, robed in strange black garments. The presence of these eighteen persons halted the charge as the fighters turned to look at the newcomers, taking in the presence that they projected.

"Who are they?" some murmured to one another.

"Which region are they with?" asked others.

Stepping forwards from the robed individuals was one clad with royal blue flames and tornadoes along his black cloak, black spines adorning his wrists and shoulders. He spoke in a powerful voice, deep and rich with age and wisdom, with the fighters below captivated by his every word. He spoke of the experiences his comrades and he, standing behind in silence clothed in similar black robes with different decorative patterns. One stood adorned with crimson red flames wrapping around the fringes of his cloak which, when shifted created the illusion of real fire burning him alive. Another wore glowing bars of an electric blue hue flashing as if pulsing with energy. A fourth with deep blue waves along the base with vials of bubbling water, a fifth steel grey armoured plates protecting his body and a sixth with light grey falling feathers, with feathered sleeves and folded wings along her back. One had forest green falling leaves and brushes, one with snowflakes and frost, one with shimmering rainbow wings of tiny creatures and sparkling pink dust, and one with tiny insects and spider webs. Bands of clay red ran rings around the strong giant, while spiralling, almost hypnotic swirls surrounded the grizzled elder, hunched over in age. Falling boulders and stalagmites adorned a slim woman, while the woman beside her held mountains and a shaking ground. Jagged claws and fangs stuck out with a vivid purple toxic sludge dripping from the cloak of a crouched, hissing man, while the shimmering fabric of various colours gave way to an illusion of dark slashes and edges on a distant woman. On the fringes, a hulking man with mist pouring slowly from the openings on his tattered cloak coupled with the sharp eyes staring out of the shadow gave way to the presence of death, while the last figure was a simple woman in a normal black cloak, no real distinguishing features about her garb.

The man who had stepped forth and spoke before told of how his companions and he were masters of the types of Pokémon, one person for each type. Together, they had discovered a means to end the tyranny that plagued the world, ending the need for fighting between regions and for peace to prosper once again. They each took out and held a large tablet glowing in the colour of each of their mastered attributes, pulsating with an overwhelming aura. These elemental tablets, he explained, had the power to bring an end to the calamity that held the world in its cold iron grip. They had to travel to the hidden structure known only by its name, the Palace of Judgement, an ancient mythological edifice said to exist on the edge of the plains of reality. According to legend, keys containing the ultimate potential of each and every type could lead those who brought them all together to the legendary construction, unlocking the gate and allowing the chosen to enter. These keys, in their full might, had the power for those chosen to control the legends that created the world that we know, bending their will to the wielders of the keys. The mysterious man before the armies claimed that these tablets they held were the keys spoken of in legend. Together, the man promised that they would travel to the Palace of Judgement and, with the help of the legendary Pokémon, they would bring an end to the darkness that had clouded the world for over half a century.

With those promises, these strangers had given something that had not been present in the hearts of everyone for a long time. Their words gave them hope that finally, after so many years, things could go back to how they were before, with trainers focusing on their journeys with their Pokémon and everyone getting along in harmony. The warring regions laid down their arms and banded together once again, giving as much aid as they possibly could, and that would be accepted, to the mysterious individuals that would save them from the never-ending nightmare. Before long, the Pokémon masters took off on their search for the gate that would take them to Palace of Judgement, giving the world the salvation that they so desperately believed could exist. Their journey was tracked by the world for many weeks until, suddenly, they disappeared, vanishing without anyone even realising. At first, people assumed that they had just passed through the hidden gate, setting them on their path to the structure of legends. However, as time slowly passed on, the widely accepted theory was that they had ran away, that they had all been tricked, that these 'false heroes' had deceived them all and that, when they had what they wanted, they left everyone hanging to dry.

Days turned to weeks as the people looked to the skies for the dwindling sign that something had changed for the better. They searched the last place that the Masters were seen, looking for any indication that they may have returned. But no token of the people that everyone's aspirations and wishes were riding on could be found, nor was there any indication of a visible gateway that they may have passed through. Solemnly, the world returned to its despairing state, the hearts of all filling with misery. For no augury of what was about to happen could have given any notion of their journey.

Five weeks after the disappearance of these eighteen Pokémon Masters, a solar eclipse shadowed half the world, with the other engulfed in an unusually clear night sky. It was during this day that a special anomaly occurred, something that no one could have expected. The sky exploded in a rainbow of colours, billowing out across the whole world. Following this, small strange fragments emitting light of various colours fell from the sky, raining down from the heavens. Shards of fiery red, orange, light and dark brown, light and steel grey, electric yellow, pine green, chartreuse, cerulean and ice blue, toxic and dark purple, magenta, rose pink, pure white and white with an outline as black as the darkness of an abyss fell through shadowed day and sparkling night, descending towards the surface like tiny shooting stars. Everyone flocked outside to see the spectacle as shards fell across cities, mountains, valleys, lakes, seas, forests and plains. Plummeting along with the shards, landing at the feet of the Kanto Champion at the Indigo Plateau, was a shrunken Pokéball, blackened as if caught in a hellish flame. Opening the Pokéball, the champion found inside a small, folded letter, written by the Masters, specifically the man who had spoken to them all.

The note told them that the eighteen companions passed through the gateway and made it to Palace of Judgement. From there, they had managed to make it to the heart of the legendary construction, now proven to be reality, to which they then encountered the true puppet masters behind the chaos of the world. The record gave no notion as to whom that may be, but it spoke of a battle between them all, during which the legendary Pokémon began to appear one by one. During this conflict, driving the legend wild, the tablets were shattered and dispersed from the realm that the construction presided within. Now it was down to others among them to make it to the building and fix the world, according to the writings, as there was no guarantee that any of them could return without the tablets. Finally, the letter simply stated that they had failed and wished the world luck in gathering the shattered tablets, effectively their last hope, and was signed off with the name, ' _Draco,'_ leading them to believe he was the Dragon master. Turning over, scrawled in vivid red, were the words ' _You don't need the whole tablet to unlock the final path_ '. From then since on, that day that the shards fell became known as Judgement Day.

Gathering all of the shards that had been found by people, through the colouring of the various fragments, the leaders of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova and Kalos had determined that these indeed were the tablets that the eighteen presented during their introductions. However, there were two very large issues that needed addressing. Firstly, though no one alive knew how to repair the tablets, though not necessary, they could tell that not all the fragments that fell from the sky had been accounted for. Secondly, and much more important, only seventeen tablets had fragments laid out in front of them. The missing plate was the one holding the power of Dragons, Draco's tablet. This meant that they had no means to reach the palace, let alone open or even find the gateway.

Amongst the leading representatives of the major regions, they decided to separate the fragments that they did have, splitting them into smaller groups, due to some of the animosity that still lingered from the war before that crept back in before Judgement Day. Some would be put in perilous and difficult to reach natural environments, while other fragments would be sent to all the regions, separated again if necessary for the size of the region. These fragments would be offered up singularly in tournaments, as a way of choosing the strongest trainers around the world. The trainers partaking in these journeys would be selected through local areas around the world, undertaking a test that the local leaders would decide upon for themselves. This way, the strongest battlers would be able to reach the Palace of Judgement and do what Draco and his companions could not.

After the meeting of the leaders, the fragments were spread far and wide, with only one shard from each of the seventeen found tablets remaining together with the International Police, the only unified international body that could be trusted. Small teams were also assigned in secret to search for any sign of the Dragon Tablet, or at least a shard of it. News soon spread far and wide of the decision for champions to be chosen in trials held in various places of the many regions in the world, though there were warnings that not many champions could be travelling at once, so selecting trials were held sparingly. Around a decade later, with no voyagers having collected all seventeen of the shards without giving up on their expedition, and the Dragon Tablet still lost to the world, the restrictions on the number of champions being sent out were lessened and more and more people being sent out to help the world.

A hundred years passed since the events of Judgement Day and still nothing had changed. The champion trials had become a tradition and were still held with great spectacle, though only one champion was being sent by each localised area. Some groups were beginning to form between champions and allies, though even those could not succeed where others had fell. The retrieval of Draco's tablet was becoming as unbelievable as the prospect of their being any way to fix the world, something that was becoming normal life. People were seriously beginning to question just how 'normal' life would be if this would ever be over. Electricity seemed to be becoming less and less efficient and effective, with Pokémon Centres gratefully being an exception, cities and towns were being sealed off with stone walls and wooden palisades, people young and old had grown accustomed to training with and carrying weapons like swords, spears, axes and maces, and tales of olden times were fading fast. Though things had quietened down a fair bit for a long time, the natural calamities were starting to reoccur and the legendary Pokémon were stirring again.

Trying to make a new start, many people had moved to different areas of the world that had previously been abandoned or fairly untouched by humans before, sometimes even taking up homes in old regions that had once been inhabited but, for one reason or another, were forsaken. One of the first of these regions was Fumei, a relatively small region that occupied the small amount of land south of Sinnoh, connected to Sinnoh via the Stark Mountain range and surrounded on all other sides by water, with the eastern and southernmost lands stretching up as large cliffs. Fumei contained a few large villages and small towns, with two aptly sized cities, one on the west coastline and acting as the only main port of the region, and one leading just off of the northern mountain range leading to Sinnoh, in which the highest point of Fumei was located, the icy peak of Everidge Mountain, though smaller in comparison to Stark Mountain. In the south-west portion of the region stood the second highest point of the region, the flattened peak of Conquest Mountain. This mountain rose up high, with a fairly large village sitting on a large green cliff that sloped out from the steep mountainside. This village is called Thornscar Bluff, and it is here that a brand new band of heroes would be discovered …

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 **So there we go! Prologue finished! Hopefully you liked it. Also, if you're confused about the choice of region name, _Fumei_ translates roughly into "Unknown" (Japanese to English), which is kinda the point. There's not much known about the region, so it made sense. As for the robes, they're similar in detail to the robes that The Undertaker wore a couple of years ago.**

 **Now, I'll try to upload as often as I can. Unfortunately, I'm in Yr 12, so that time may be far and few in between. (still got a story from nearly two years ago that I haven't finished yet because of school killing motivation ...). Still, I shall persevere!**

 **If you like this and my style, feel free to check out my other stories. You can also ask me what you like about this and other things, though I'm not going to reveal too much if you're wanting secrets and spoilers. As I'm a beta reader, I'm also quite happy for any of you to ask for help there, though the school thing also goes for that. If you just want to talk then, again, feel free to PM me.**

 **Finally, if you want to make a suggestion for a character that will be come across at some stage in the story, then feel free to. That can be a side character, support or a villian. I'm not taking suggestions for main characters in terms of looks,** **Pokémon, names and attitude. If you want to make a suggestion for something they do along the way, then that's fine. If you're not sure whether you're suggestion will be alright or not, then feel free to make it anyway.**

 **Leave any thoughts you may have, constructive criticism is very much welcome. Fav and/or follow if you want, and I'll see you all next time!**


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